


Finding Burgess

by LectorEl



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Burgess is Jack's Santoff Clausen, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 00:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/2200.html?thread=2765976#cmt2765976">rotg_kink</a></p><p>Jay and Sophia have known the story about Jack Frost and Burgess for as long as they can remember, and they've finally decided to go looking. But there's something strangely familiar about Burgess, and Jack Frost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Burgess

Jay can’t remember a time when he didn’t know about Burgess. It’s always been there, the fairy tale city of winter, domain of Jack Frost. His mom or dad must have told him about it at some point, but it’s not like he can ask them. It’s been just him and Sophia for years, ever since the accident. 

He knows what he’s doing is stupid. Him, his baby sister, and a dying pick-up truck, driving the back roads of the east coast, looking for something Jay doesn’t expect to find. He knows Burgess is real, but how could a sixteen year old find a city that nobody else ever has? If you go by highway, you’ll drive right through it without even noticing, the stories say. You’ll go around it while thinking you’re going straight. Nobody who isn’t welcome in Burgess ever gets in.

But Sophia’s only eight, and he needs a story to tell her to keep her calm. Better ‘looking for Burgess’ than the truth: that he’s considered a kidnapper for taking his own baby sister out of the stupid, awful group home they’d stuck her in. Jay just needs a reason to lay low for a few months, till he can pass for legal. 

“Look at this, Jay!” Sophia bounces excitedly in the back seat, waving a tattered atlas from the stack they’re keeping in the footwells. They’re all over two hundred years old, because the story goes that Burgess was once an ordinary town, and ordinary towns are on maps, right?

Jay pulls over, and twists around in his seat. “What’cha find, Soph?”

“Burgess!” Sophia says, looking at Jay like it’s Christmas and her birthday and a snowday, all rolled up together. “I found it!”

Jay takes the atlas with shaking hands, staring at what his little sister had found. On the yellowing pages, right in the middle, near the spine, is a little dot labeled ‘Burgess.’ Hope rises in his throat. Could they really…?

“Burgess,” Jay says, laughing. Sophia found _Burgess_. This fool’s errand might be an actual search after all. “This call for a celebration, don’t you think?”

Sophia nods, grinning. “Ice cream?”

Three weeks later, the euphoria has died down, and the truck is threatening to die too.

“Come on,” Jay whispers, “Just a little further, it’s only a few more miles.”

He gets lucky. The truck rumbles to a halt in the middle of the abandoned road, a few yards from a rusted sign barely lit by the light of the moon. 

**Burgess Town Limits**

They were here. The place Jay had spent his entire life dreaming of, and he’s afraid. Afraid it’s just going to be a ghost of a place, or worse, an ordinary town. Afraid Jack doesn’t call Burgess home after all.

He swallows, and squares his shoulders. This is what they’ve been dreaming of since they were children, Jay will never forgive himself if he passes it up. Going back to the truck, Jay shoulders the heavy backpack that holds all their clothes, toiletries, Sophia’s paperbacks, and Jay’s journals and sketchbook. 

Sophia is still sleeping like a log across the back seat, and doesn’t wake when Jay picks her up. She’s underweight, only a little over fifty pounds. Too small, she’s been too small since the year they entered the foster care system.

Jay shifts his hold so he’s carrying her more firmly, and starts walking.

***

There’s a kid sleeping on the stoop of her bookstore, curled in an uncomfortable-looking tangle of limbs. Mary frowns, setting aside her book, and crouches to look at the kid. 

The two kids, she corrects herself. They’re ill-cared for, in a way people in Burgess just aren’t. Nothing obvious, but their hair needs washing, and their clothes are worn and don’t fit right. They’re both a touch too thin, and the older one – a boy in his mid-teens – has a tight, pinched look even as he sleeps, curled around the smaller girl like he means to protect her from the world. 

They look too solemn, even in their sleep. Like they’ve not been around Jack like children their age should. Something is wrong, that much is clear.

“Hey, you two,” Mary says, shaking the boy’s shoulder. His eyes flutter open, panic darting across his face before going blank. The worry in her gut sours further. 

“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to trespass,” the boy says, standing quickly. The girl, maybe his sister, whines in her sleep and he shushes her distractedly, tucking her face against his chest. He’s _afraid_ , Mary realizes in astonishment. Afraid of her?

“It’s no problem, kiddo,” she says, in the same tone that she uses to coax the cat back out from under the furnace. “I just wanted to make sure you two were okay. It’s not good to be sleeping out in this weather, what with the wind Jack kicked up last night.”

Not that Jack would ever let anyone get hurt on purpose, but sometimes unexpected things took a while to be noticed. Like skinny, wary kids sleeping out of doors instead of tucked into bed by their parents, elder siblings, caregivers, or at last resort, Jack himself.

The boy softens a little, a sheepish look crossing his face. “We’re fine. Our truck died, and I thought I could walk into town. I’m bad at judging distances.” He picks up a battered bag, awkwardly shifting the girl without ever setting her down to get it on his back. His stomach rumbles and he blushes hotly.

Mary shakes her head, stepping past him and snapping her fingers to unlock the heavy wood door. Jack had one of his friends rig up some sort of magic lock after the third time Mary locked herself out. She didn’t get how it worked, but it did, so she didn’t worry.

“Visiting family out of town?” Mary asks, catching the boy’s shoulder and prodding him forward. It would explain why they were looking so rough. “I’m not fond of leaving town much, what’s the world like these days?”

“Picking up my sister,” the boy says, with a bewildered look as Mary bullies him inside. “And it’s busy, mostly. And really rule-bound.”

Mary finds herself warming to the boy even more. Such a responsible sibling. “That’s good of you. How old is she?”

“Sophia’s eight,” he says, blinking in confusion. “Um, ma’am, is there something…?”

“You two look starved. I figure it’s best I feed you before you get on your way. And call me Mary, not ma’am.” Mary bustles the boy into one of the small tables in the attached café, his sister blinking and yawning as he sits down.

“Jay, where are we?” she asks, voice heavy with sleep, as she stretches. 

Her brother looks at her, protective and warm. It transforms his face, brushing away the signs of stress. “Burgess, Soph. We made it.”

Mary smiles to herself, and retreats to the kitchen to get the bread dough from last night baking. She has some oatmeal around here somewhere, from her last disastrous attempt to make oatmeal cookies, where did she leave it…? 

“Morning, Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” Jack says, slipping in through the open window. Mary muffles a shriek and glares, waving a wooden spoon threateningly.

“That quit being funny when I was twelve, Jack,” she tells him tartly. Jack grins, winsome as a lost puppy, and hops up on the counter.

“Aww, but your garden’s very pretty.” Jack snickers and Mary laughs as well, shaking her head.

She stands on her tip-toes to check an upper cabinet, and asks, “What can I do for you, Jack?”

“Wind heard you talking about kids sleeping rough last night,” Jack says, tilting his head in silent question. 

“They’re out in the café. Sophia and Jay, no last name. Jay’s the older one. Tried to walk into town, the silly thing.” Mary pulls the oatmeal out with a triumphant exclamation.

“Huh.” Mary turns at Jack’s odd tone, catching a pensive look on the eternal teenager’s face.

“Jack?” she asks, concerned. Jack waves her off.

“Just remembering some old friends, nothing to worry about.” He stands up, making a show of dusting off his tattered pants. “I’m going to check on them, okay?”

“Sure. They’re right over-” Mary cuts herself off as Jack’s crook clatters to the floor. He’s staring at the kids like he’s seen a ghost.

“Jamie?”


End file.
